On deck in MoCo: Wheaton and Takoma plans

Montgomery County just put the finishing touches on the Great Seneca Science Corridor and White Flint Sector plans, two of the most transformative — and controversial ­— master plans in recent history. Now planners are turning their attention to smaller-scale plans in the county’s most diverse communities, hoping to promote transit-oriented growth without forcing out existing small businesses and long-time residents.

Next up for the master plan process are the 72-acre central business district in Wheaton and the 112-acre Takoma-Langley area. Master plans establish general land use, densities and heights, and are used when landowners seek zoning changes.

The current Wheaton master plan was established in 1990, before the Metro station opened, and partially revised in 2006, though it was not as comprehensive of a change as this process will be. The latest adopted plan in Takoma Park was formed a decade ago.

But the areas are drastically different from Gaithersburg West (home to the Great Seneca Science Corridor) and White Flint, not only in diversity, but in the number of land owners and the size of the parcels they own.

In Takoma-Langley alone there are more than 100 small businesses in smaller-scale retail buildings. While this is good for diversity, County Planning Director Rollin Stanley said having more owners makes assembling parcels and incentivizing development tougher.

“If you have a chunk of land and it’s paying the bills, what’s the incentive to redevelop it? We’re trying to make that happen through the plan,” Stanley said.

The Takoma plan, which is being done in concert with the Prince George’s County Planning Department, largely hinges on the unbuilt and to date, unfunded, Purple Line, a 16-mile light-rail line that would connect New Carrollton to Bethesda.

Stanley said owners and developers are hesitant to pour money into the area without a guarantee that the transit plans will come to fruition. The area is home to a large population of Caribbean, Indian, West African, Korean and Vietnamese immigrants that Stanley hopes will stay and open more diverse businesses and restaurants.

Using commercial-residential zones, a new mixed-use zoning tool for the county that sets an achievable density based on certain criteria, Stanley hopes to give developers additional density in exchange for retaining existing businesses.

“We can’t control whether the business goes broke in a year, but what we can try to do is give them an incentive to keep the tenant there,” he said.

In Wheaton, the county Department of General Services is looking for development partners for 10 publicly owned sites along Georgia Avenue totaling 11.7 acres. The county wants those sites, some of which are contiguous, to be centerpieces of redevelopment in the area, which has both Metro access to the Red Line and bus service.

The county issued a request for qualifications from developers earlier this year and will select partners by the end of June.

Gary Stith, deputy director of planning and development for the county, compared the process of working on public-private partnerships in Wheaton to what the county did with The Peterson Cos., Foulger-Pratt and Argo Investment Co. during the redevelopment of downtown Silver Spring.

“The two processes kind of pushed each other,” he said of the project and concurrent master planning work. “I think it resulted in both a master plan and a development concept that really worked well,” Stith said.

The planning board approved in April plans for a Safeway off Georgia Avenue in Wheaton that would include 60,000 square feet of commercial space, and 500 residential units, including some workforce housing.

Council President Nancy Floreen said the recession helped bring the need for redevelopment in the county to light.

“When in times of success, some quarters seemed to be pushed to the side. Now people are starting to connect the dots between job creation and economic development,” she said. “This represents a refocusing on older, existing communities and a redefinition of revitalization. We’re going to look at new techniques to jump-start these areas.”

Stanley said a major driving force behind the plan is falling tax revenue. Denser development means more people living in an area and, in turn, more taxes paid.

“Now builders are seeing that this is where the future is. They see young people and older couples downsizing and they need options,” he said.

The county does not expect the same heated density debates that were spurred by the Great Seneca plan, and so far neither the Montgomery County nor the Greater Silver Spring chambers of commerce have gotten involved.